Upsampled video of the Tokaido Shinkansen opening in 1964

[Yavianice]

I found this randomly in my YouTube recommended videos box. An old video of the Shinkansen debut, but now upsampled to “60 fps”. Looks pretty neat and maybe interesting to some. Funny to see how “slow” the original Shinkansen used to be.

the channel also features some other upsampled old video from Japan.

Edited July 25, 2020 by Yavianice

[200系]

4 hours ago, Yavianice said:

Funny to see how “slow” the original Shinkansen used to be.

 

 

There's actually a pretty good reason for the apparent slowness of the shinkansen in most of the original footage. 

Even though the intention was for all Hikari services to complete the journey between Tōkyō and Shin-Ōsaka in 3 hours and 10 minutes, during the first year of operation, all Tōkaidō Shinkansen services were actually scheduled to run at a service speed of 160km/h as opposed to their maximum design speed of 210km/h, extending the scheduled travel time to 4 hours exactly. This limit was put in place because, apparently, the quick construction time of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen meant there were some doubts whether the roadbed had settled properly, as well as the cautious attitude by J.N.R. management (most likely a leftover from their earlier opposition to the shinkansen project), and as such it was decided to limit the operational speed to 160km/h at first. Running at 210km/h was allowed, though only when making up for operational delays.

 

With the 1st of November 1965 timetable revision this limit was lifted, and scheduled 210km/h (could be -10km/h depending on the timetable) services would commence. This also meant that the scheduled trip duration for Hikari services went down by 50 minutes, from exactly 4 hours with the lowered speed limit, to the desired 3h 10min after the revision.

 

Compare these two clips with the footage shown above, though of course not as fast as contemporary designs, they don't appear as slow as in the earlier footage (both were taken after the maximum operating speed of the 0系 was increased to 220km/h in 1986, though I don't think a theoretical speed difference of 10km/h will change the perception of speed too much).

 

0系 16 car formation (looks to be either a H or Nh formation) blasting through Shin-Yokohama in the early 1990's:

 

Formation R61 passing Shin-Kobe at ~220km/h during the last run of the 0系 (Hikari 347, the 14th of December 2008):

 

Yay, managed to wrap up a post like this in less than 1000 words, go me!

[chadbag]

The "1964" film showed two speed indicators.  One showed 160kmh and another a but later showed around 200kmh.

 

I think some of it is also the camera perspective, angles, etc.

 

And aren't there sections of the line where they go slower?  I've done "GPS" based speed measurements on Shinkansen and noticed that in some areas, the speed was lower (?)

 

[Socimi]

10 hours ago, chadbag said:

The "1964" film showed two speed indicators.  One showed 160kmh and another a but later showed around 200kmh.

 

I think some of it is also the camera perspective, angles, etc.

 

And aren't there sections of the line where they go slower?  I've done "GPS" based speed measurements on Shinkansen and noticed that in some areas, the speed was lower (?)

 

 

I'm sure there are quite a few speed limit sections. 

 

I'm quite sure that the Tokaido Shinkansen doesn't thunders thru Atami Station or passes on the Katsura River Bridge (just east of Kyoto) at the full 285 Km/h.

(the two are the thightest mainline curves on the Tokaido Shinkansen).

 

Also, if i'm not wrong, Tokaido Shinkansen trains have a speed limit of 70 Km/h entering or leaving Tokyo station.

 

There must also be a speed limit on the S-shaped curve around Musashi-Kosugi Station in Kawasaki... It's also pretty tight there.

 

 

 

Also, as a reference, the 60fps video was sampled from this neat documentary (starting from 1:12). There's a thread dedicated to it.

 

 

 

[200系]

18 hours ago, chadbag said:

And aren't there sections of the line where they go slower?

 

 

There certainly are a number of slower sections on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, though only a small number of those are actually related to the technical nature of the line.

Generally speaking, shinkansen are designed for continued operation near or at the specified design speed, and hence will only include "slow" zones when there is no other option available. This includes high density areas around large city centers (where all trains normally stop anyway, so a short section with a lower speed wouldn't make much of a difference in travel time anyway), areas where because of noise regulations/protests it became impossible to maintain a higher speed (the Tōhoku shinkansen section between Ueno and Ōmiya is an excellent example of this) or where re-alignment was necessary because of geological reasons  (the Nakayama tunnel on the Jōetsu shinkansen for example).

 

Before the introduction of the 300系 shinkansen in 1992, on the Tōkaidō shinkansen, these sections were limited to the areas surrounding the major stopping points along the line, Nagoya, Kyōto and Shin-Ōsaka.

As the Tōkaidō shinkansen was designed around a maximum operational speed of around 250 Km/h (though sold as a ~200 Km/h line for political reasons), and as such has a minimum curve radius of 2500 metres or more (for the people running, or wanting to run, their N-gauge shinkansen at max speed, a 2500 metre radius equates to a 15.63 m radius in 1/160). This meant, that even when the maximum speed was increased from 210 to 220 km/h this was well within the design tolerances of the infrastructure, and hence no slowdown zones were needed, outside the already mentioned sections near the large population centers, and the more complicated section between Tōkyō and Shin-Yokohama (or rather Kawasaki-shi to be specific) which I will be covering in the next part of my reply.

 

The relatively (for a shinkansen at least) sharp minimum radius* used for the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, did start to pose a problem with the introduction of the 300系, because the increased maximum operating speed, 270 Km/h, exceeded the maximum operating speed in those section containing R=2500m curves (not all curves on the Tōkaidō use this radius, but enough for it to prevent further speed increases), which, even after JR Tōkai increases the super-elevation/cant on most curves, would still be limited to 255 Km/h. With the introduction of the N700系 in 2007 this limit was increased to 270, and post 2015 (increase in max speed to 285 Km/h) to 275 Km/h for the N700系 family, with the newer A models capable of maintaining 285 Km/h even with R=3000m curves.

 

That said, most of the slowdowns you experience on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen seem to be more closely related to either the timetable used, or more frequently, closing in on a preceding train for which the ATC system will compensate by temporarily limiting the maximum operating speed of the train behind. The volume of traffic on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen makes this almost inevitable, and this is something you'll notice a lot less on the other shinkansen. This is also the reason why JR Tōkai has historically retired their slower shinkansen seemingly early, any small difference in operating speed will start to add up when the schedule is as tightly packed as it is on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen.

Anecdotally, I noticed a lot less of these changes during my latest trip in October last year (when the last handful of 700系 formations were only operating a limited number of services)  in comparison to the same period in 2015 (when there were still a much larger number of them in service).

 

*this 2500m radius isn't used on all curves on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, and is related to the tightest part of the curve (unlike in our hobby, lead-in curves are always employed).

 

9 hours ago, Socimi said:

There must also be a speed limit on the S-shaped curve around Musashi-Kosugi Station in Kawasaki... It's also pretty tight there.

 

And you'd be correct, there is an ATC limit of 120 around the R=500m cruve near Musashi Kosugi (110 before the introduction of ATC-1D/W in 1986), which is actually the sharpest curve on the "shinkansen" part of the shinkansen (if that makes sense). The progression of this section of track is interesting in it's own right, as trains operating in this section go through a number of speed limit changes in pretty short time frame.

 

When leaving Shinagawa (on a descending run) the initial ATC limit is 70, after crossing the Keihin-Tōhoku and Yokosuka line (which crosses under the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, and re-emerges parallel to the shinkansen on the lower level) the ATC limit changes to 120 (110 pre-1986)  and stays there until the shinkansen reaches the bridge over the Daini-Keihin (national highway) near Magome station on the Toei Asakusa line. As the shinkansen passes the bridge (first seen at 1:44 in the video in the opening post, the ATC coil for the descending line is situated near the end of the bridge (visible in google earth)) the ATC limit changes to 170 (160 pre-1986). A few hundred metres before approaching the bridge over the Tama river, at the Tōkyō/Yokohama border, the ATC limit drops to 120 in order to decelerate in time for the aforementioned R=500m curve near Musashi Kosugi. After passing the curve, and near the Asahi Printec factory the ATC limit changes to 230 (210 pre-1986, 220 post 1986 for the 0系 and 100系) which is maintained  until the approach to Shin-Yokohama.

Up until the timetable revision of March 11th 1989 non of the Hikari services would stop at Shin-Yokohama station, hence they would pass through the center tracks at ~210/220 Km/h. The same was true after the introduction of Nozomi services in 1992 (no Nozomi service would stop at Shin-Yokohama until the timetable revision in October of 2001), though with the timetable revision of March 2008 all trains would now stop at Shin-Yokohama. Hence the current accelerate-decelerate-accelerate-decelerate-stop cycle between Shinagawa and Shin-Yokohama.

 

7 hours ago, Socimi said:

Also, if i'm not wrong, Tokaido Shinkansen trains have a speed limit of 70 Km/h entering or leaving Tokyo station.

 

You're not necessarily wrong here though it's not limited to just Tōkyō station, there's a 70 km/h ATC limit when approaching any station stop on any of the shinkansen (or any of the switches, with exception of those at the branch of point between the Jōetsu and the Hokuriku Shinkansen which have a higher speed limit (160 km/h from the top of my head). Though they usually don't enter the station at 70 km/h as there's an ATC coil located near the start of the platform which in normal circumstances drops the ATC limit to 30 km/h (at which point the driver has to confirm the signal by using either a button (when equipped with either one of the ATC-1 variants or ATC-2) or operating the brake handle (ATC-NS or DS-ATC) otherwise the ATC brake application will not be canceled which means the train comes to a complete stop at the start of the platform).